


In Defense of Lemons

by KaytiKazoo



Series: How It Could Have Been [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Fitzsimmons Family Feels, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26096620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/pseuds/KaytiKazoo
Summary: Alternate Ending to 7x13 What We're Fighting For:Deke doesn't stay behind, has feelings for Daisy and Daniel, and they maybe, a little bit have feelings for him back
Relationships: Deke Shaw/Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa, Leo Fitz & Deke Shaw
Series: How It Could Have Been [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903096
Comments: 12
Kudos: 35





	In Defense of Lemons

Falling in love with Daisy was easy, and expected. Anyone could do it, so Deke joined the long list of people who loved Daisy Johnson happily and readily. He was okay with that. Even if she never felt the same way back, he could be there for her and support her. She deserved to be happy no matter with who or what that was. She was sunshine, and fresh-squeezed lemonade, and the best songs all at once. Being around her was soft, and gentle. Deke couldn’t explain it; even after everything they’d been through, she felt familiar and warm. 

“Be careful,” Nana warned him one night. “Daisy’s been hurt before, and she’s a bit – well, don’t get yourself in over your head, don’t drown yourself in loving her.”

But that’s the only way Deke really knew how to love.

He tried to distract himself, and move on. With Trevor. With Sequoia. With Snowflake. He focused on how they tasted, how they touched, how they sounded, how they felt pressed into him. If he could drown out the loud doldrums of his love for Daisy, maybe it would fade without him noticing. If he piled on experiences with others that he never had with Daisy,  maybe he could convince himself to let go. 

He almost managed it, but then he met Daniel Sousa, and he knew that look, felt it in his bones. He expected jealousy to bloom in his chest with the way Sousa looked at Daisy, and the way she looked at him in return. Except instead he felt, most confusingly, hope.

The 80s were great for Deke, a place away from the team, away from Daisy and Sousa. He thrived there, but even when he was surrounded by fans, by women and men begging for his attention, he ached for them. For her. No, he thought, one night when he lay alone, for  _ them _ .

Daniel Sousa, another man out of time, although on the opposite end of the spectrum from Deke. He was gorgeous, a fact that shouldn’t surprise him as much as it did. Deke obviously liked men, especially once he was out of the Lighthouse and on the earth where there were so many to choose from. Trevor had been his first real foray, and it had been a magnificent introduction. It left Deke curious for more, and his curiosity pointed him towards Daniel Sousa.

“You’re going to get your heart broken,” Yo-Yo warned, watching him stare after Daisy and Sousa. “Be careful with her.”

“Can I tell you something? Something no one else knows.”

“Of course.”

“It’s not just Daisy,” he said. He wasn’t sure what his face must have been doing, or what it said about him that Yo-Yo's eyebrows rose. “I think it’s Sousa, too.”

“Seriously?”

He shrugged and replied, “yeah, I don’t know either. Just one day, boom, wanted to know what his lips felt like.”

“Oh, Lemons,” Yo-Yo said gently. “You’re in over your head here.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he laughed. “Never do anything in half measures.”

“That’s certainly true,” she agreed. “What are you going to do?”

“Wallow,” he said. “Be their friend, appreciate them from afar, but wallow.”

She pat his arm kindly.

“Don’t lose a piece of yourself to this, though.”

It was too late for that.

When they got Bobo back, and someone had to stay behind, it was only natural for Deke to step forwards, cutting off Sousa as he tried to sacrifice himself and his relationship with Daisy.

“I just want you to be happy,” Deke said to Daisy, and then looked at Daniel, “both of you.”

“No,” Daisy protested. “You can’t, Deke.”

Before he could make his third point, Daisy walked pasted Daniel and dragged Deke in. It took him a second to realize that she wasn’t hugging him goodbye, she was  _ kissing him _ . There was a stunned silence around them. 

“Daisy,” he said into her kiss. “What about Dannyboy?”

“We’ll talk about that later. Don’t stay, come with us. Find another way.”

“Daisy,” he protested.

“You and Fitz can build whatever you need to build here, and we’ll find someone to press the button or plug it in, whatever. Come with us,” she said. “Stay with us.”

“There’s no us,” he reminded her. “There’s you and Sousa, and then there’s me.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that. We can work through that, and fit you with us.  Together . Just – I don’t want to lose you too, Deke.”

There was something about the way she said it, his name like a prayer, pleading with him.

“Okay,” he said. “Time to get to work, then.”

“Are you sure?” Fitz asked. There was something different about him, his hair longer,  wilder . He looked more like Deke’s mom than he ever had before.

“Only if we can do this safely,” Deke said quietly. “If there’s no way for it to work without one of us here to flip the switch, I’ll stay, but I want to try.”

Fitz clapped him gently on the shoulder.

“I hope this works, then,” Fitz said. “You deserve some happiness, Deke.”

“Who are you and what did you do with my Bobo?”

Fitz laughed, and it soft, and fond.

“Had time to think,” he replied.

“Glad you came around.”

Fitz tipped Deke’s head down to look at the wound on his scalp, bloodied and aching but nothing too serious, from where Garrett had beaten the shit out of him earlier.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m not easily broken.”

“Yeah, I know,” Fitz said, looking wistfully at Jemma, “you get that from her.”

“She’ll remember you again, you know.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. There’s something much more important that she needs to remember.”

“What – that’s extremely cryptic.”

“What was your mum’s name? I’ve never asked, but –”

“Alya,” Deke replied. “She’d changed her name when the Kree moved in, but my dad used to call her Alya when we were alone.”

Fitz took a deep breath.

“There’s someone you’ll have to meet if this works, then.”

They worked side by side while the rest of the team took apart the  device to load onto the Zephyr. It was so nice, being able to work beside his family again, building and creating in tandem. 

“I’m sorry,” Fitz said, speaking to the device they were building instead of actually towards Deke, “for the things I said to you. I don’t think you’re a hack, or a fraud. You’re an incredibly brave man, and a very good person, who keeps getting put in the worst situations and you still manage to thrive and come out on top. I’m glad Jemma had you here with her.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your apology.”

“I’m also sorry about Trevor,” Fitz said. The name stalled Deke’s heart.

“Dangers of being SHIELD, right?” he said flippantly.

“Yeah, doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt. Doesn’t mean you can’t grieve.”

“I’ll grieve  later, I’ve got work to do now.”

Later, after the dust had settled, and Deke had met his mom as the sweetest little girl he’d ever met, and everyone had gone their separate ways, Daisy took Deke and Daniel to a nice hotel.

“Why are we here?” Deke asked.

“It’s been a while since I’ve laid back and relaxed, so I want to spend a weekend or more with my boys and order room service, and talk.”

“Okay,” Daniel agreed, looking around nervously as they crossed into the lobby.

“What if this doesn’t work?” Deke asked.

“Then if you want to leave, you can. No harm done.”

Deke followed them into the hotel where Daisy checked in to their single room. The hotel clerk didn’t even blink at their three people but one bed. Deke was sure she’d seen weirder.

“Here you are, Miss Johnson, room 713. The WIFI password is in this packet, and there’s a schedule of events for the spa which is down that hall. If you need anything during your stay, please don’t hesitate to clal. Thank you for choosing Rosewood Hotel and  Resort , and enjoy your stay.”

Daisy led them both to the elevators and to their room. Deke felt like he was going to pass out. There’s no way this was real. He wasn’t heading up to a room with two of the most beautiful people he’d ever seen, and he wasn’t potentially going to share a bed with them, and more. Maybe more. God, he hoped there was more. He wasn’t sure if Daniel would be okay with more, being from so far in the past. If he’d want to wait. If he’d want Deke at all.

“Come along,” Daisy said, leaning back to catch his hand with one of her breathtaking smiles. “Get out of your head, Deke. It’s okay.”

“I’ve never done this,” Deke said honestly.

“Me neither,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it.”

“Me too,” Daniel added, “for what it’s worth.”

Deke looked at him for a long moment, and said, “it’s actually worth a lot.”

Daniel stepped closer to him, moving between him and Daisy. 

“There’s something I would like to do,” Daniel said, “something I’ve never done before.”

“What’s that?”

“Can I kiss you, Deke?”

Deke’s mouth moved before his brain, saying yes before he could comprehend what Daniel was asking. Daniel moved in even closer, and pulled him in by his arms, fingers gentle against his skin. It was the most caring way he’d been touched, and Deke could tell everything would be different with Daniel even before their lips met. But it was good, and soft when they did, Deke’s mouth opening immediately for Daniel’s tongue. He gripped the front of Daniel’s shirt, soft and grey, and made a noise into Daniel’s mouth. 

“Could we continue this in the room?” Daisy asked, touching their shoulders to draw them away from one another. “Have this little discovery in peace? Especially if it goes any farther, like Deke clearly wants it to.”

Deke’s hips jerked into Daniel’s at the idea, and they both drew a moaning breath. 

“Inside the room,” Daniel agreed. 

His hand slid down to Deke’s, and he threaded their fingers together. Daisy led the rest of the way to their room, and let them in. It was a beautiful room, decadent with tons of natural light flooding in through the balcony doors. There was a single king-sized bed in the middle of the room, and it looked disastrously plush. The first thing Deke and Daisy did, after kicking off their shoes, was to fling themselves into the middle of it and let themselves sink into the cloud.

“This is heaven,” Deke said. “When I was in the Lighthouse, I thought heaven would be different. I didn’t know what it would look like, but a plush bed in the middle of an expensive hotel in Los Angeles? Wasn’t on the list.”

“Plush beds, expensive hotels, Los Angeles, none of that existed to draw from,” Daisy commented.

“Exactly.”

Daniel sank onto the bed carefully. He was still getting used to his new prosthetic.

“Oh, they brought them!” Daisy said brightly, rolling to the edge of the bed. Deke didn’t even bother to turn his head, but he didn’t have to, because when Daisy came back, she upended a bowl of lemons onto his chest. “Payback.”

He pulled her down into him for a kiss.

“What are these for?” Daniel asked, picking up a lemon from the center of Deke’s chest.

“It’s a sign of affection and courting when I’m from. We didn’t have a bunch of farms or fresh food, living in the vacuum of space and all, so citrus fruit were rare and coveted. They were both nutritious and exotic. So, people would save up and buy a single fruit for the person they were dating, or to ask someone to date them.”

“Deke once anonymously left a bunch of lemons on my bed,” Daisy said fondly.

“In my defense, Mack and Coulson told me it was something that happened in this time, too,” Deke said. 

“I think that’s very cute,” Daniel said, leaning into their space and kissing Daisy first, and then Deke. “I’m sorry I don’t have any lemons for you.”

“You can have some of mine,” Daisy offered.

“Excuse me,” Deke said, “these are  _ my _ lemons now. You gave them to me, don’t go giving away my lemons.”

Daniel caught his eyes, and god, he was beautiful. 

“Can I have a lemon, Deke?”

“Yes, you may, because you’re a gentleman, and Daisy is a thief.”

She blew him a kiss.

He couldn’t believe how nervous he’d been. This felt natural. It felt right, and good, and like something was slotting into place inside of his chest. He held out a lemon to Daniel, who grinned, and then one to Daisy.

“I’d like to try this out with you both, too,” he said. “No matter where this road leads us, I’d like to follow it with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just want Deke Shaw to be happy, y'all.
> 
> -k


End file.
